Wormhole Airdrop Error Nearly Rewards 2022 Thief
In A Nutshell
The individual responsible for the notorious theft of over $320 million from the Wormhole bridge in 2022 was momentarily considered eligible to receive a recent airdrop from Wormhole. This airdrop would have provided them with approximately $50,000 in Wormhole’s new W tokens. Although the eligibility was short-lived, this incident highlights significant oversight in the security measures of crypto airdrops.
The Oversight in Airdrop Eligibility
A pseudonymous researcher known as Pland brought to light on April 4 that the Wormhole team had neglected to exclude certain wallet addresses linked to the monumental 2022 hack from their airdrop eligibility list. This oversight could have allowed the hacker to claim about 31,642 W tokens, valued around $50,000. However, subsequent checks by Cointelegraph on airdrop.link revealed that these wallet addresses had been rectified to show as ineligible, indicating a quick response from the Wormhole team to address the error.
Background of the Wormhole Hack
The Wormhole bridge experienced one of the crypto industry’s largest heists in February 2022, with $321 million in cryptocurrency stolen. In a turn of events, February 2023 saw a ‘counter exploit’ conducted by Web3 infrastructure company Jump Crypto and DeFi platform Oasis.app, which managed to reclaim $225 million of the stolen assets. This operation underscored the growing sophistication in securing and recovering digital assets within the crypto ecosystem.
Recent Wormhole Airdrop
Coinciding with these developments, Wormhole announced an airdrop of over 675 million of its W tokens, worth approximately $850 million, to eligible participants on April 3. This move, aimed at enriching the Wormhole community and stakeholders, has unfortunately also attracted attention from potential scammers and spoof token creators, as noted by Degen News.
Our take
This incident serves as a vivid reminder of the complexities and risks inherent in the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency landscape. While the quick action by the Wormhole team to correct the eligibility error is commendable, it also underscores the critical need for robust security and verification processes, especially in activities as impactful as airdrops. As the ecosystem continues to mature, such oversights can serve as valuable lessons for all stakeholders to refine and bolster their operational security measures, ensuring a safer and more secure future for digital assets and their communities.
